Who among us has not enjoyed a sunny seaside snack of
fish and chips, coupled with a fizzy drink and maybe followed by an ice
cream? How long have Tauranga residents
been able to do so? It took quite a
while for the components of this classic meal to come together.
Exactly 152 years and two days ago, at a race day at
the Tauranga racecourse on 14 January, 1874, hot and thirsty spectators were offered
a fizzy drink – the long-standing classic and ubiquitous ginger beer. Messrs
Grant & Co superintended the refreshments tent [1[ and a Mr. Clarke handed
out the non-alcoholic beverage, probably in sturdy, re-usable bottles that
looked like this:
Ginger beer was
enormously popular, not only for the slightly daring implication that it might be
intoxicating, but also because it was cheap and easy to make in a bottling plant
or at home. (Ginger was also a
well-loved spice and thought to aid digestion.)
Prizes were awarded for the best home-made ginger beer at A & P
Shows[2] and by 1923 T.H. Hall was
offering it in a commercial quantity[3]:
The other elements of
our now-traditional meal trio were less easily adaptable to open-air
enjoyment. The first reference I can
find to an offering of fish and chips is in the Bay of Plenty Times of 16 April
1909 [4], where Mr W. H. Beets, one
of the firm of Beets Bros. that flourished briefly in Tauranga during the early
years of the century, offers a terse invitation:
This is, unfortunately, some months after the same
paper had advertised the Beets Bros clearing sale, so maybe it is a last
gesture to mark the end of their endeavours from their premises on the Strand?
I have been unable to trace the location of either the
Beets’ “depot” or the “Strand supper room” as such – it may have been a venue
so convenient and well-frequented that everyone knew where Mr Beets’
hospitality would be on offer. Supper rooms were to be found as part of larger
buildings all over Tauranga, so this one was very likely to be part of another establishment,
possibly the Commercial Hotel. In this,
approximately 1908, photo, where the two-storey hotel is the backdrop, fish can
be seen hanging on its verandah:
One thing is quite
clear, however – in early Tauranga, fish and chips were not eaten out of paper on your lap[5], but were served on plates set on tables. The clearest evidence of this is provided in 1911[6]:
People knew about ice cream, of course. But suspicions of the mass-produced stuff
were rampant. The 1909 – 1910 issues of
the BP Times carry several stories of high microbe counts, the presence of
arsenic, and even ptomaine poisoning. So
the cream had to be reliably sourced (Beets Bros had advertised a milk ordering
service during their time here); and, although pasteurisation was well
understood as a preservation process, it was complex to accomplish.
The 1896 feature article, underneath “The Dairy” headline, highlights the way in
which an apparently American manufacturer achieves production in sufficient
quantity to supply the ice cream parlour in his city for the summer months. The correspondent, J. Moldenhower, states:
“Thus treated you can ship your cream with absolute safety in jacketed [i.e.,
insulated] cans any reasonable distance.
If the cream on arrival at its destination is cooled again to below 50
degrees, it will keep sweet for 24 hours at least even without freezing. The pasteurised cream not only keeps from
souring, but it keeps its flavour perfectly fresh for several days.”
Well, maybe. For
some time ice cream was to remain a delicacy made in private homes, involving
much labour.
By 20 January 1913, however
– one week less than 113 years ago – we are back at the Tauranga races, where,
in the “capable hands of Mrs F. H. Hammond”, a midday dinner was provided,
followed by “afternoon tea, ice cream, and cream and fruit, from 2 p.m. till 6
p. m.”[8]
It could be said that
Mrs Hammond broke the ice. In October of
that year, an ice cream stall was up and running at a Methodist Church sale of work[9]; and at last, in 1914, ice
cream was to be had from a shop on the Strand[10], Whitehead’s Tea Rooms. Did Whitehead’s customers get to wander along
a sunny street licking a cone? Almost
certainly not. A thick conical sundae glass
kept the confection colder for longer (anyone who has eaten ice cream made from
real cream knows how quickly it drips and puddles).
A century ago our 1970's family eating with their fingers al fresco on the Strand may have chosen
Whitehead’s for their classic summer meal.
And they might have found it as delicious as the fizz, fish, chips, and
ice cream of today.
[2] See, for instance, results listed in the Bay of Plenty Times of 24 March 1916, 16 March 1917, and 15 March 1918
[3] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19230111.2.2.6
[4] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19090416.2.7
[5] An early example of such informality, however, is the account of the Peace Celebration in 1919, when, along with ginger beer, participating children (in large numbers) were given paper bags containing a lunch (likely to be a sandwich, a cake and some fruit). Having eaten its contents, they felt free to blow up and pop! the bag.
[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19110529.2.6
[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT18961209.2.19
[8] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19130120.2.8
[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19131020.2.5
[10] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19141118.2.18
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